The Prower Chronicles: Crucible of Truth
by DJ Kitsune
Summary: With the alliance defeated, Miles and his newly resurrected soulmate/wife Cosmo return home to begin college, their careers, and to make up for lost time.  But, they soon find out, a new enemy has emerged to corrupt Miles...
1. What Dreams May Tell

The Prower Chronicles:

The Crucible of Truth

**Chapter One**

What Dreams May Tell

The headquarters of what had been a seemingly invincible alliance now stood as an empty tomb to the horrors that could have been and the terrors that still could be. In its main chamber Sonic the Hedgehog stood before his master Tomomo Mae, having failed in his mission, and waited for his queen to seek her violence upon him. In his dark heart he feared his blood offering wasn't enough to atone for his display of weakness. But, surprisingly, the nogitsune ruler lifted her hand as an indication for him to rise to his feet.

"I accept your offering and pardon you for not completing the task I ordered. Having spent a millennium plus a few hundred years corrupting the offspring of my sister I have learned patience and timing if nothing else. Your work will bear fruit, I assure you, just not as soon as I had hoped." Tomomo Mae said with a deceptively kind tone as she looked behind her.

Sonic the Hedgehog, in chains attached to the wall, hung; his head slumped to his side as if he were sleeping. Every part of his body bore either scars or fresh wounds inflicted by the nogitsune soldier standing next to him with bloody whip in hand. The Sonic now behind Tomomo Mae transformed back into his original form: a nogitsune.

"You can return to my domain and stay there until I need your services again" Tomomo Mae instructed. The nogitsune bowed before his master and descended down a set of stairs to his right. "As for you, Sonic, its time to go back to your cage until I need you again. Take him away!" she laughed as she lifted his chin with her finger.

**Meanwhile, on the planet of Fichina…**

Cosmo and I arrived on the planet and we were surprised to see Peppy Hare and his daughter Lucy waiting for us at the airport. He was holding a small clipboard with several pages on it and Lucy was leaning on what I assumed to be her navy blue convertible.

"This is a pleasant surprise. What brings you to Fichina?" I asked as Peppy showed me what looked to be a rental agreement. It could only mean one thing: we weren't going to have to spend hours and days trying to find a place to live.

"I own a three bedroom house and forty acres of meadow near the city limits which I don't use anymore. When I heard you were coming to live here, I knew that living arrangements would be the first thing you would worry about and so here you are: a rent-to-own agreement between friends." Peppy told Cosmo and myself as I smiled at him and started to look over the five pages filled with the details of rent and conditions and other legal mumbo jumbo. One thing I noted in my mind was a section which gave me the strip we were on free of charge.

"Cosmo, you want to read this too? It looks good to me, at least." I asked as Cosmo walked up to us and took a quick look.

"It is sufficient…but I think we should take a look at the house before we sign anything."

"My daughter and I wouldn't have it any other way…I should mention that I've given you this airport strip free of charge. This way, you'll be able to leave the planet at a moment's notice without having to go through airport procedure and all that. The hangar that the strip comes out of is yours as well if you want to go ahead and dock your ship. When you're ready, you can follow us to the house." Peppy replied as Cosmo and I nodded and went back into the Blue Typhoon.

After we docked the ship, I drove my all black Mazda RX-8 out of the ship with Cosmo sitting quite happily in the passenger seat.

"That's a nice ride, Miles. Where'd you get it?" Lucy asked as I started thinking about the answer to that question.

"I bought it on the planet Earth a few years back. It's been a guinea pig of sorts since then due to all of the modifications I've made on her." I replied as Lucy pointed toward the hood. I knew what she wanted and I complied with her request.

She could only whistle in awe at the custom-built engine that I'd installed and the neon that surrounded the other parts. Her gaze soon gravitated to the wheels and the spoiler in the back and everything else.

"This car has parts from the Lylat System, Earth, and my home planet. I've worked hard to try and reverse engineer all of the technology involved and it's given me some new ideas which I've put to good use on the car and on my ship." I told Lucy as Peppy whispered to Lucy.

"Well, um…if you'll follow us, we will show you the house." Lucy told Cosmo and I with a little bit of embarrassment on her face.

After about a half an hour's drive on a road cutting through a mountain range, we arrived at what was a serene meadow with a blue and white, two-story house sitting in the middle of the field. I could tell by Cosmo's expression that she was impressed. We signed the agreement, waved goodbye to our friends, and entered the house.

The first thing we noticed was that the house was completely furnished with a sofa and a recliner in the living room. A brick and mortar fireplace graced the wall facing the furniture and to our left a hall with rooms on both sides caught Cosmo's attention. She quickly left me in the living room and opened up the first room and looked inside before going in. I walked to the end of the living room, noting the staircase going down, and went into the kitchen which was also fully prepared for us.

"Well the rooms are nice and all…" Cosmo started to say as she entered the kitchen and saw me prowling through the fully stocked refrigerator. I pulled my head out of the labyrinth of groceries and looked at Cosmo. I guess I forgot that I had a chicken leg in my mouth because she started to chuckle.

As I finished nibbling on my lunch, Cosmo walked into the final, unexplored room. I heard her gasp in surprise and then I heard her start laughing. When I caught up with her, I saw why.

"Do you see this? It's my very own greenhouse!" Cosmo exclaimed as she literally danced in between the rows of plants that were growing tall in the bright sunshine. I noted that the greenhouse was very large and that it was a very good coincidence that we had one…now Cosmo could take a lot of her college work home.

I stood there, watching my soul mate look over the plants, and I breathed in the fresh air. Finally, everything was the way it should be…but a small part of me was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I knew Sonic was going to try and invade my life again. I just didn't know when or how.

"So now that I have my greenhouse, shouldn't you start building a laboratory like the one you had in Star Fox HQ?" Cosmo asked as I suddenly snapped out of my thoughts and realized that I had left all of my scientific equipment on Papetoon. As I nodded my head in reply, I decided to not go back to Star Fox HQ and retrieve my lab equipment and my small gang of nanobots. Slippy could easily reprogram them however he wished and they would probably need the lab in the future.

"I'll rebuild a lab here from scratch…_yawn_…you mind if I doze off for a bit?" I asked Cosmo as she chuckled again. I think she was starting to see the more private side of me that she hadn't seen when we were younger.

"Go ahead…I'll join you in a little while." Cosmo said in a sensual tone that drove my insides crazy.

I found the master bedroom easily enough and after noting where the restroom was, I threw myself on the large waterbed and covered up with the thick, comfy blanket that had been folded on the end. For the first ten minutes or so, as I started to go deeper into sleep, everything was good. But then, in an instant, things went about as downhill as if I was jumping off a cliff.

"_H...he...help me! Brother…help me…" _I heard in the darkness of my sleep. I was having a dream, a very blank dream except for the broken, scratchy voice that became louder as the seconds passed. It seemed that I was there, walking down a long tunnel. When I came out, I saw something I could have never guessed.

I saw Sonic handcuffed to the back wall of what seemed to be a room carved out of the rock of a cavern. A chain held him suspended inside a rusty metal cage and he was bleeding from scratches to his face and abdomen. He was still saying the same words as I looked at him. My first thought was that he was getting what he deserved. As that thought stewed more and more, Sonic desperately screamed at me in disbelief at what he must have seen as my betrayal of him.

"_NO…I have not betrayed you…someone else posing as me…Inari…talk to Inari…" _Sonic gasped as I saw a nogitsune sneak up to him and slash his arms with a whip covered in flames. Then, in the blink of an eye, he jumped at me and covered me in darkness. I woke up from my dream seconds later with sweat dripping from my face. Cosmo was just entering the bedroom and she immediately saw how shaken up I was. She asked me over and over to tell her what my nightmare was, but I just couldn't. I didn't even know what it meant and I wasn't even sure she'd believe me.

I left Cosmo in the bedroom to be by myself, hoping she'd understand my need for privacy. As I went outside and stood out in the field with only nature as my companion, I tried to make sense of my dream.

_Was it real…or is this some trick of Sonic's…he couldn't have the power to invade my thoughts…and how does he know about Inari…_

"I was the one who sent you the dream." a familiar voice told me as I spun around to see Inari standing in front of me. It looked like I was going to get the answers to my questions.

"What you saw was a glimpse of events that are taking place as we speak. The Sonic you've known for the last few years is an imposter. He is a nogitsune who was posing as your friend in an attempt to further corrupt you. Your inclinations, in other words, were right on the mark. " Inari told me as I got the feeling that she was withholding information.

"I'm sorry you have to be involved in this…I had hoped that at least one of my descendants who accepted their destiny would not have to confront the evil which surrounds us." Inari lamented.

"What is this evil?" I asked as Inari pointed to the house.

"You should go get your soul mate. Come back here with her and I'll tell you all that I can. I'll tell you about Tomomo Mae…"


	2. The Legend of Tomomo Mae

**Chapter Two**

The Legend of Tomomo Mae

I went inside and talked to Cosmo for a few moments before walking back to the part of the meadow where Inari was standing. The vulpine goddess took a second to prepare herself before she revealed the truth about the evil Miles had encountered in hell only a few days ago.

"Tomomo Mae is my younger sister and at one time, thousands of years ago, we were the best of friends. But something happened to her. Something turned her heart towards the darkness. I don't want to go into detail about it now because it would overwhelm you but what is important is that from the day it happened she slowly became what she is now. She decided on that day to corrupt my descendants and make them join her. This has been her one malicious desire from the beginning and you are her next target."

"She does this through the curse that I carry with me?" I asked as Inari reluctantly nodded. Cosmo cringed a little behind me and I assumed that she was recalling her own suffering at the hands of the demonic kitsune.

"When she corrupted the first of my descendants it left a curse on him which he eventually gave into. He had a child with one of his distant cousins and a piece of his curse transferred to his son…and this has been the way of things up to you. Those who never give in to the darkness bypass the curse and they are your brothers and sisters which are in heaven. Those who are cursed can still resist being immersed in darkness but no one has ever been able to overcome it for long." Inari told me as I remembered what Sarah had told me when I had been comatose.

"So is there no hope for me to remove this stain on my body and soul? I've given in to the curse twice: when I betrayed my heart and when I almost attacked Sonic on my ship. Does that mean that I'm walking down a road without an escape?" I asked as Cosmo put her arm around my shoulder and looked at Inari intensely.

"Sarah told you that it was irreversible but only because what you would have to do has been impossible so far. I would have never even entertained the possibility of you being able to do what no one else has except for the fact that you rescued your soul mate from what is essentially Tomomo Mae's domain: the bowels of hell. So I have to give you the information and the opportunity to do it: you have to find Tomomo Mae and defeat her. If you can confront her face to face and resist her power then her control over my descendants will be broken beyond repair."

"Am I strong enough to do this now?" I asked as Inari smiled at me which threw Cosmo and I off guard.

"No you're not. All of you skill in martial arts and the power of wind would be nothing more than the power of a stinging mosquito to her at this point. But the good thing is that you have a sea of hidden potential which time and training will reveal. He is also not alone in this fight" Inari replied as Cosmo added a few thoughts.

"What do you mean he's not alone? You've been talking up to this point like Miles is the only one who can defeat her."

"Miles could be the chosen one…prophesied in our ancient writings as the one who will finally defeat Tomomo Mae. But that doesn't mean that he won't have allies. You, in fact, will be one of them. I say this because you are his soul mate: his battles are your battles; his struggles are your struggles. You and Miles are one soul…you complete each other. And just as he has a sea of hidden potential so do you." Inari replied as I walked closer to her.

"Well now that you have revealed some things to us, I think it's about time I return the favor." I said as I told both her and Cosmo about what my dream had been about.

Inari didn't respond immediately, but Cosmo's shock at the news was so great that she went down to one knee. I could hear her mumbling to herself and it sounded like she was saying _'when will it end'._ In my mind I thought the same thing: when will we finally know what the real truth is. Inari heard it too and she tried to comfort us while she told us what she thought Tomomo Mae was up to.

"I'm now entirely convinced that your friend Sonic is innocent and that Tomomo Mae had one of her leading nogitsune impersonate him. The ability to morph into other living things is a natural skill that we have but I only allow my servants to use it as an emergency measure because it is an easy skill to abuse."

"So everything that Sonic did was really done by a nogitsune? That would explain why the curse burned me when I attacked the nogitsune on my ship. In my heart, I truly believed that my friend had betrayed me and I was wrong. I don't know what the truth is anymore…" I mumbled to myself as Inari sighed slightly.

"My advice to you is to continue to fight the curse within yourself and develop the power within you. Help Cosmo develop hers as well and together you will find answers. I will do everything in my power to rescue your friend from Tomomo Mae's grasp. Until we meet again." Inari replied as she disappeared in a cloud of white smoke.

As the cloud that Inari had created began to fade away, I went over to Cosmo and told her what Inari had said in a kind and compassionate whisper. She nodded slightly and we went back to the house hand in hand.

For the next few weeks, Cosmo and I endured a rigorous schedule of college, work, and training that challenged us physically, mentally, and spiritually. Every now and then Inari would visit us and see how we were progressing. And every time she arrived I hoped that Inari would give me the news that my best friend was safe, but I was disappointed time and time again.

A couple of months came and went: Cosmo and I had learned a lot and we were happy for the most part. But I, for one, started to worry about how all of the stress we were under would affect our relationship. The one thing that was most obvious was that Cosmo and I still hadn't expressed our love for each other physically. I knew that Cosmo's terrible experiences in hell were the reason why and I tried to hide my feelings from her in fear of making her feel guilty. But it was getting to me a little.

I also still felt like Cosmo held a bit of anger and hatred in her heart, which I could sense on occasion during our training sessions. She was progressing in a positive way, but sometimes she would go a little over the top and actually hurt me considerably when we would spar. She would always apologize and it wouldn't happen again for the rest of the hour or two that we would be training. But it would happen again a few days or maybe even a week later.

And then on top of it all was Sonic and the possibility that he could be a pawn in Tomomo Mae game. I could tell, from the way Cosmo looked at me when I talked about it, that she didn't believe completely that Sonic was innocent. I guess that could be a good thing: Inari was a goddess and my ancestral mother, but she wasn't omniscient. She, and my dream, could both be horribly wrong.

It wasn't until two weeks later that I finally found a definitive answer to my question concerning Sonic's guilt or innocence. Cosmo was in her greenhouse running an experiment on breeding a new type of tiger lily and I was watching her hard at work as she nibbled on her pencil a little bit. That's when I heard the slight sound of a knock in the direction of our house.

I responded slowly but as the knocking became louder and more frequent, I hurried my pace. When I finally went over the hill and down the paved road to the house, I saw him. I saw Sonic and he was in the hands of Inari's servant, Elijah. They were both in horrendous physical condition. I was stunned, to say the least.

"Elijah thank the gods you finally found him! Cosmo come over here! Elijah found Sonic and he looks like he needs your healing abilities" I called in desperation. But Cosmo didn't run to my aid like I thought she would. When she finally walked up to me, several minutes later, I was feeling a little annoyed at Cosmo's lack of concern for my friends.

"Is this really Sonic? Or is it the nogitsune who's supposedly been imitating Sonic?" Cosmo asked as I looked at her in disbelief. But Elijah looked her dead in the eye and let her see how beaten and bloody both Sonic and him were. Cosmo's expression changed almost immediately and she quickly held out her hands and let her natural abilities flow through them. Within a few moments Sonic and Elijah were as good as new. They followed Cosmo and I to our house where we treated them to food and rest.

"So how did you find him exactly?" I asked. "I had heard from Inari that rescuing him was next to impossible."

"Well that wasn't no lie my friend. Inari finally got enough crazy kitsune itching for the taste of battle to volunteer for the rescue mission. You should have seen the whopper of a fight we had. It almost makes me wish us heavenly kitsune weren't immortal so that the fear of death would make us more ferocious." Elijah said as I whistled in disbelief.

I then embraced Sonic and cried a little at having my best friend back. As I did so he apologized in my ear for everything that I had gone through. It surprised me a little I have to admit. As he let go of me he explained why he had asked for my forgiveness.

"It was my emotions, Miles. The foul demon who impersonated me did those things to you and Cosmo but behind them was feelings that I had and some that I still have. I feel guilty in a way because I did have the idea, briefly, that Cosmo shouldn't be around you. I've also felt attracted to you and felt that I should control what you do. The nogitsune played on my emotions…" Sonic said with sorrow in his voice and I quickly hugged him again.

"It's not your fault, Sonic. Everyone, including myself, has feelings about themselves or others from time to time. You yourself didn't act wrongfully towards me as a result of those feelings and if it wasn't for the nogitsune they would have never been an issue with me."

"He's right, Sonic. Besides we won't get anywhere dwelling on what has happened. We need to focus on what we're going to do next now that Tomomo Mae has lost her prisoner." Cosmo added as I looked in her direction with a little bit of surprise and pride in my face.

"That's the problem. Tomomo Mae is so secretive about the true purpose of her attacks that trying to come up with a method of countering them seems almost useless. I mean she knows that all she has to do is lie in wait, even if it takes hundreds of years, for the curse to overcome my soul. But if that is the case, why would she try to rip both my soul mate and my best friend from me? It seems like a lot of effort for nothing unless she isn't so sure that the curse will do me in like it has everyone else."

"That's exactly it, Miles. Tomomo Mae thinks that you will be the one to defeat her and so she isn't just waiting for you to mess up. For example when I died wrongfully because of the decision you made and you were confronted with this information by both Princess Sally and Sarah, you became cursed. Your curse became stronger when you battled the nogitsune who was posing as Sonic on the Blue Typhoon. Tomomo Mae has been forcing you to enter into situations where your ability to make correct decisions is tested. It doesn't matter how many times you succeed: all she has to do is make you fail once in a while and she knows she will eventually wear you down until she wins." Cosmo told me as Elijah nodded in agreement.

"That's how it has been for everyone of Inari's descendants who's fell under the curse. Tomomo Mae is a master of keeping out of the limelight and attacking from the shadows. She can't be defeated if she can't be directly engaged and she'll keep up her psychological tactics unless you and your friends force her hand."

And that, ultimately, was the question on all of our minds: Sonic and Cosmo, who were once Tomomo Mae's prisoners, were now safe and sound. Tomomo Mae, in not being able to stop it, had suffered a significant defeat. The threat of her so-called 'tests' was far from gone though. Like a spiritual game of chess, Tomomo Mae had lost two of her weapons and she was reeling a bit. The only question now was who would make the next move in the war: her and the nogitsune who were at her beck and call...or us.


End file.
